This article discusses the top 10 stock picks of Carl Icahn’s Icahn Capital LP at the end of the second quarter. If you are short on time and already know about the fund’s history and recent performance, you can skip and go directly to Billionaire Carl Icahn’s Latest Portfolio: Top 5 Stock Picks.
Barring Warren Buffett, billionaire Carl Icahn can arguably be considered the most well-known personality on Wall Street. Mr. Icahn has made headlines since the early 80s with his multiple hostile takeover attempts of various companies. These numerous hostile deals eventually led to the ‘corporate raider’ moniker getting attached to his name.
Brought up in the neighborhood of Queens, New York, Mr. Icahn started his career in finance in 1961 as a stockbroker at Dreyfus Corporation. Seven years later, he had accumulated $150,000 in savings, which he used along with a $400,000 investment from his uncle to purchase a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and thereby start Icahn & Co, which later became Icahn Capital LP.
Ten years after founding the firm, Mr. Icahn attempted his first hostile takeover of beleaguered companies, which has continued till this day. When famous director Oliver Stone was making the iconic movie ‘Wall Street’ he came to Mr. Icahn for guidance about the inner workings of Wall Street. It is said that Mr. Stone got so enamoured by Mr. Icahn’s personality that he used it as an inspiration for creating the character of ‘Gordon Gekko’ in the movie.
Over the years, Mr. Icahn has accumulated a lot of fame, or, what some people might call, notoriety. Earlier this year, HBO released a documentary on him called ‘Icahn: The Restless Billionaire.’
Icahn Capital LP’s Portfolio
According to Mr. Icahn’s last submitted 13F filing for the quarter ending June 30, the aggregate value of all the stocks owned by Icahn Capital LP exceeded $20 billion. Icahn Capital LP also initiated a stake in one stock and increased its holdings in four stocks during that time. At the end of Q2, Icahn Capital LP’s top 10 stock picks, which included several companies from the energy sector like FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE:FE), CVR Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CVI), and Cheniere Energy, Inc. (NYSE:LNG), accounted for 96% of the aggregate value of its 13F portfolio.
Carl Icahn of Icahn Capital
Our Methodology
Insider Monkey tracks the portfolios of 895 hedge funds, closely monitoring the stocks they buy and sell. For this article, we selected billionaire Carl Icahn’s top 10 stock picks based on the most recent 13F filing submitted by his firm with the SEC for the quarter ending June 30.
Billionaire Carl Icahn’s Latest Portfolio Top 10 Stock Picks
10. Dana Incorporated (NYSE:DAN)
Icahn Capital LP’s Stake Value: $201,011,000
Percentage of Icahn Capital LP’s 13F Portfolio: 0.96%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 18
Although Welbilt, Inc. (NYSE:WBT) was Mr. Icahn’s 10th top stock pick at the end of the second quarter, the company got delisted from the exchanges on July 28 after Ali Holding S.r.l., a part of Ali Group, completed its $4.5 billion acquisition of Welbilt, Inc. (NYSE:WBT). Dana Incorporated (NYSE:DAN) is an energy management and power-conveyance solutions supplier to the automotive industry.
In the last 10 years, Dana Incorporated’s (NYSE:DAN) stock has gone nowhere, trading between the $10 and $30 range for most of that period. This underperformance of the stock versus the broader market could be one of the reasons that smart money investors have been selling it in droves. The hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey that disclosed a stake in Dana Incorporated (NYSE:DAN) dropped to just 18 at the end of June 2022 from 37 in March 2019.
Out of the 7 analysts on Wall Street covering the stock currently, 5 have a ‘Hold’ rating on it. On August 4, Wells Fargo & Company analysts upped their target price of Dana Incorporated’s (NYSE:DAN) stock to $16 from $15 while maintaining their ‘Equal weight’ rating. On the same day, analysts at Royal Bank of Canada also boosted their target price on the stock to $18 from $17 but kept their ‘Outperform’ rating unchanged.
9. Bausch Health Companies Inc. (NYSE:BHC)
Icahn Capital LP’s Stake Value: $290,269,000
Percentage of Icahn Capital LP’s 13F Portfolio: 1.39%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 39
Icahn Capital LP first reported initiating a stake in Bausch Health Companies Inc. (NYSE:BHC) during the last quarter of 2020. It increased its stake by almost six-fold in the next quarter and since then has continued to own more than 34 million shares of Bausch Health Companies Inc. (NYSE:BHC). However, the value of Icahn Capital LP’s holdings in the pharmaceutical and medical device company has collapsed as shares of the company have declined almost 85% since the end of March 2021.
Known earlier as Valeant, the company changed its name to Bausch Health Companies Inc. (NYSE:BHC) after a major scandal involving its business practices and corporate governance broke out. However, even the name change hasn’t helped in changing its fortunes. Bausch Health Companies Inc. (NYSE:BHC) has been selling and spinning out its subsidiaries over the past few quarters to bring its debt back to manageable levels.
8. Herc Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HRI)
Icahn Capital LP’s Stake Value: $362,659,000
Percentage of Icahn Capital LP’s 13F Portfolio: 1.73%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 24
Mr. Icahn has had a very interesting history with Herc Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HRI). Icahn Capital LP first reported a stake in the company in a regulatory filing for the quarter ending June 30, 2016, the same quarter in which Herc Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HRI) announced separation from its car rental division Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTZ). Post the separation of the two companies, Mr. Icahn in the next few years became the largest shareholder of Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTZ) and reportedly lost almost $2 billion on that bet amid Hertz Global Holdings, Inc.’s (NASDAQ:HTZ) bankruptcy. However, his holdings in Herc Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HRI) would have compensated for some of that loss as the stock of the equipment rental company has appreciated by 176% in the last 5 years.
On July 21, Herc Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HRI) announced its fiscal 2022 second-quarter earnings, reporting non-GAAP earnings per share of $2.47 on revenue of $640.6 million, while analysts were expecting it to report non-GAAP EPS of $2.59 on revenue of $631.1 million. On August 22, analysts at KeyCorp upped their price target on Herc Holdings Inc.’s (NYSE:HRI) stock to $165 from $130 and maintained their ‘Overweight’ rating.
7. Southwest Gas Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SWX)
Icahn Capital LP’s Stake Value: $444,380,000
Percentage of Icahn Capital LP’s 13F Portfolio: 2.13%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 30
Southwest Gas Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SWX) jumped several spots in Icahn Capital LP’s portfolio, with the fund increasing the stake in the utility company by 76% to 5.1 million shares in Q2. Other hedge funds tracked by us that upped their stakes in Southwest Gas Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SWX) during the same period included Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, which boosted its stake by 1531% to 175,746 shares, and Chuck Royce’s Royce & Associates which increased it by 23% to 98,955 shares.
Southwest Gas Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SWX) distributes and transports natural gas in California, Nevada, and Arizona. The company reported that it had 2,159,000 industrial, residential, commercial, and other natural gas customers at the end of last year. On August 10, analysts at Wells Fargo & Company reiterated their ‘Equal Weight’ rating on the stock but lowered their price target on it to $86 from $101, which still represents a potential upside of 8.3%.
6. Xerox Holdings Corporation (NYSE:XRX)
Icahn Capital LP’s Stake Value: $508,543,000
Percentage of Icahn Capital LP’s 13F Portfolio: 2.43%
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 29
Xerox Holdings Corporation’s (NYSE:XRX) stock was one of the worst casualties of the slump in the equity markets during the onset of the COVID pandemic. Unlike most other stocks, it has yet to recover to the levels it traded before the pandemic and is currently trading down by 47% over the previous five years.
On August 3, Xerox Holdings Corporation (NYSE:XRX) announced that it is making Steven Bandrowczak the permanent Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company. Mr. Bandrowczak joined Xerox Holdings Corporation (NYSE:XRX) as President and Chief Operations Officer and has been serving as the interim CEO since John Visentin, the ex-CEO of the company, passed away in June 2022. On August 16, analysts at Credit Suisse Group initiated coverage on Xerox Holdings Corporation’s (NYSE:XRX) stock with an ‘Underperform’ rating and a $14 price target, which, based on the stock’s last trading price, represents a potential downside of 27.2%.
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Disclosure: None. Billionaire Carl Icahn’s Latest Portfolio Top 10 Stock Picks is originally published on Insider Monkey.
